Years With Laura Diaz, The (13 page)

Read Years With Laura Diaz, The Online

Authors: Carlos Fuentes

BOOK: Years With Laura Diaz, The
6.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“And what would you like, that we return to the times of the
Aztecs?” answered one of the ladies to whom the exporter-importer had uselessly directed his words.
“Don’t make jokes about the only serious man in the history of Mexico,” interjected another gentleman with an expression of fierce nostalgia on his face. “We’re going to miss Porfirio D
az. Just you wait and see.”
“We haven’t until now,” answered the businessman. “Thanks to the war, we’re exporting more than ever and making more money than ever.”
“But thanks to the Revolution, we’re going to lose everything, right down to our underwear, begging the ladies’ pardon,” was the answer he received.
“Oh, but those Zouaves were very handsome,” Laura heard the lady who was angry with the Aztecs say. She missed the rest of the guests’ conversation as they slowly advanced toward the tables piled high with galantines, pates, slices of ham, roast beef …
A very pale, almost yellow hand offered Laura an already prepared plate. She noted a gold ring with the initials OX and the starched cuff of a dress shirt, cuff links of black onyx, good-quality cloth. Something kept Laura from raising her eyes and meeting those of this person.
“Do you think you knew Santiago well?” said the naturally grave but deliberately high-pitched voice; it was obvious that his attenuated words emanated from baritone vocal cords. Why was Laura refusing to look at his face? He himself raised her chin and said to her, The terrace has three sides, on the right we can be alone.
He took her by the arm, and she, with her hands around her plate, felt at her side a svelte masculine figure, lightly perfumed with English cologne, who guided her without a pause, at a normal speed, to the farthest terrace, left of the bandstand, where the musicians had deposited their instrument cases. He helped her avoid these obstacles, but she awkwardly dropped the plate, and it smashed on the marble floor, scattering the pate and roast beef.
“I’ll get another,” said the unexpected gallant in a suddenly deep voice.
“No, it doesn’t matter. I’m not really hungry.”
“Just as you like.”
There was little light in that corner. Laura first saw a backlit profile, perfectly outlined, and a straight nose with no bridge that stopped at the edge of the upper lip, slightly withdrawn with respect to the lower lip and the prominent jaw, like those of the Habsburg monarchs who appeared in her history textbook.
The young man did not release Laura’s arm. She was shocked, even fearful because of his next statement: “Orlando Ximé
nez. You don’t know me, but I do know you. Very well. Santiago talked about you with great tenderness. I think you were his favorite virgin.” Orlando burst into a silent giggle, throwing his head back.
When the moonlight fell on it, Laura discovered a head of blond curls and a strange, yellowish face with Western aspects but decidedly Asian eyes. His skin was like that of the Chinese workers on the Veracruz docks.
“You speak as if we knew each other.”
“Speak familiarly please, or I’ll be offended. Or perhaps your’d rather I left you in peace?”
“I don’t understand, Mr … . Orlando … I don’t know what you’re saying to me.”
Orlando took Laura’s hand and kissed her soap-perfumed knuckles.
“I’m talking to you about Santiago.”
“Did you know him? I never met any of his friends.”
“Et pour cause.”
Orlando’s noiseless laugh made Laura nervous. “You think your brother gave you everything, only you?”
“No, why would I believe that?” stammered the girl.
“Yes, that’s what you think. Everyone who knew Santiago thinks that. He took it upon himself to convince each one of us that we were unique, irreplaceable.
C’était son charme.
He had that talent: I’m only yours.”
“Yes, he was a very good man.”
“Laura, Laura, ‘good’
c’est pas le mot!
If someone had called him ‘good,’ Santiago wouldn’t have slapped him, he’d have
snubbed
him. That was his cruelest weapon.”
“He wasn’t cruel. You’re wrong. You just want to get me angry, that’s all.” Laura moved as if to leave.
Orlando stopped her with a strong and delicate hand whose gesture contained, surprisingly, a caress. “Don’t leave.”
“You’re annoying me.”
“It doesn’t suit you. Are you going to complain?”
“No, I just want to go.”
“Good, I hope at least I’ve upset you.”
“I loved my brother. You didn’t.”
“Laura, I loved your brother much more than you did. But also I must admit I envy you. You knew the angelic part of Santiago. I … well, I must admit I envy you. How many times he said to me … ‘What a shame Laura’s a little girl! I hope she grows up soon. I confess I desire her madly.’ Madly. He never said that to me. With me he was more severe … Think I should call him that instead of cruel? Santiago the Severe instead of Santiago the Cruel, or better,
pourquoi
pas,
Santiago the Promiscuous, the man who wanted to be loved by everyone, men and women, boys and girls, poor and rich. And do you know why he wanted to be loved? So he wouldn’t have to reciprocate the love. What passion, Laura, what hunger for life, in insatiable Santiago the Apostle! As if he knew he was going to die young. That he did know. That’s why he gobbled down everything life offered him. Yet still, he was selective. Don’t believe he was just anything for anyone.
Il savait choisir.
That’s why he chose you and me, Laura.”
Laura had no idea what to say to this immodest, insolent, handsome young man. But the more she listened to him, the richer her feelings for Santiago became.
She began by rejecting this guest (lounge lizard, fop, dandy: Orlando smiled again, as if he’d guessed Laura’s thoughts, searching for the epithets that others repeatedly attached to him) and ended by feeling attracted to him despite herself, listening to him speak, giving her more than she knew about Santiago; her initial rejection of Orlando was going to be overwhelmed by an appetite, a need to know more about Santiago. Laura struggled between those two impulses, and Orlando guessed it, stopped speaking, and invited her to dance.
“Listen. They’ve gone hack to Strauss. I can’t stand modern dances.”
He took her by the waist and by the hand, stared deeply at her with his Asian eyes, right into the depths of her eyes of shifting light, looked at her as no one had ever looked at her, and she, dancing the waltz with Orlando, had the startling sensation that beneath their evening clothes the two of them were naked, as naked as the priest Elzevir might imagine them, and that the distance between their bodies, imposed by the rhythm of the waltz, was fictitious: they were naked, and they were embracing.
Laura awoke from her trance the instant she averted her eyes from Orlando’s, and she saw that all the others were observing them, standing hack from them, pausing in their dance to watch Laura D
az. and Orlando Ximé
nez dance.
This was interrupted by a gaggle of children in nightclothes who hadn’t been able to fall asleep and now burst in with a racket, carrying huge hats filled with oranges stolen from the garden.
“Well, well. You were the sensation of the ball,” Elizabeth Garcia told her schoolmate as they traveled back to Xalapa.
“That boy’s got a very bad reputation,” Elizabeth’s mother added quickly.
“In that case, I wish he’d asked me to dance,” whispered Elizabeth. “He paid me not the slightest attention.”
“But you wanted to dance with Eduardo Caraza, he was your dream,” said Laura, astonished.
“He didn’t even talk to me. He’s rude. He dances without speaking.”
“You’ll have other chances, sweetie.”
“No, Mama, I’m disillusioned and will be for the rest of my life.” And the girl dressed in rose burst into tears in her mother’s arms.
Instead of consoling her directly, Mrs. Garc
a-Dupont preferred to go off on a tangent, warning Laura: “I feel I must tell your mother everything.”
“There’s no need for a fuss, ma’am. I’ll never see that boy again.”
“You’re better off for it. Bad company, you know …”
Zampaya opened the main entrance, and the Garc
a-Duponts,
mother and daughter, took out their handkerchiefs—the mother’s dry, Elizabeth’s soaked with tears—to say goodbye to Laura.

Other books

Unbreak my Heart by Johannesen, I. R.
The Lascar's Dagger by Glenda Larke
Like Mind by James T Wood
A Comedian Dies by Simon Brett
The Marriage Book by Lisa Grunwald, Stephen Adler
Assignment Unicorn by Edward S. Aarons
Rift by Kay Kenyon
Lye in Wait by Cricket McRae